Fogdancing
Fogdancing is a dystopian political thriller novel by American novelist Max Shea. History Max Shea wrote Fogdancing in 1972 while working at a VA hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. While facilitating an art therapy program for soldiers suffering from PTSD, Shea was struck by their testimonials — their awe of serving under the godlike Dr. Manhattan; their guilt of committing atrocities with the Comedian; their rationalizations about going from liberators saving a people from communism to conquerors seizing a country for capitalism. Their poignant stories of shattered worldview and conscience inspired Shea to capture the confused state of the novel's main character, Howard "Howie" McNulty. Shea produced it in just five weeks under the influence of Ambrose Bierce and William S. Burroughs, and an addiction to Benzedrine to keep him awake and focused. Fogdancing ended up being a revolutionary work at the height of the Nixon years, and it’s clearly still influential in the decades following its release. Fogdancing has been adapted twice for the cinema, an award-winning adaptation by David Cronenberg and the other by the Brothers Quay. There's also a third award-winning adaptation made for television by J.T. March III. Fogdancing's influence is so pervasive that it even made a fan of various superheroes across the political spectrum, including Ozymandias, who once called Fogdancing “the second-best book ever written,”, as well as Rorschach, Mothman, Comedian, and even Dr. Manhattan, who was known to randomly quote lines from the text, such as “Up is a relative concept.” FBI Agent Dale Petey apparently discovered a copy of Fogdancing in Looking Glass' bunker while investigating his disappearance. Fogdancing was very influential with all different types of artists because of its honest portrayal and insight into soldier psychology and war trauma. The story's themes, concepts, and plot elements are also frequent in other works including the 1990 film Jacob’s Ladder and Dennis Lehane's 2003 novel, Shutter Island.MEMO: Fogdancing Pyramid Press had a periodical journal devoted to Shea’s life and work called Nothing Ever Ends. The journal had an annual “recap” contest, in which to create a definitive summary of Fogdancing’s opaque plot; the winner received a bronze bust of the novel’s signature symbol, a gas mask.CLIPPING: "Nothing Ever Ends" (December, 2005) Background Fogdancing tells the story of a man named Howard McNulty, who becomes part of a breed of special government secret operatives/super-soldiers known as Fogdancers who apparently “do the ghastly wet-work that grease the wheels of the American machine and mop up proof of all the sick stuff you’re not supposed to do during combat.” They wore gas masks and “skin-tight silver suits” that resisted the book’s version of napalm. After being involved in a terrible accident, McNulty is discharged and given a hush-money pension check. McNulty returns from the war with a guilty conscience and falls under the influence of Shut-Eye, experimental anesthesia for trauma surgeries as a way to cope with the trauma. Meeting a nurse named Greta, who shares his taste for the drug, McNulty undertakes a radical plan to destroy “the terrible weapons that built and expanded the American empire.” As the book progresses, McNulty realizes he has been manipulated for years by a rich man pulling the strings.MEMO: Fogdancing Trivia * Fogdancing loosely follows the same plot as the original Watchmen.Watchmen * Ironically, much like Fogdancing's main character Howard McNulty, Max Shea ultimately ended up being a pawn to a wealthy individual's insidious agenda. * In the Watchmen universe, Dr. Manhattan's most iconic and final line "Nothing ever ends", which he tells Adrian Veidt before leaving Earth, originated from Fogdancing.Chapter XII: A Stronger Loving World * Since Adrian Veidt was said to have read Fogdancing and called it “the second-best book ever written,” he may have based his "world-saving plot" on the novel itself. References Category:In-universe media Category:Books